I don’t think they should mean anything other than looking aesthetically pleasing with the wielder’s costume, or possibly something personal to the character. KOTOR’s Jedi classes are alright too.
The worst fanfiction is written by the biggest fans. In 1997, I wrote sequels where the Rebels had to fight a Darth Vader imposter – really Luke & Leia’s hitherto unknown younger brother – who commanded four Death Stars. Sometimes these fans grow up to realize how bad their fanfics were. But hacks like Jar Jar Abrams never grow up.
As a kid my vision of an Episode VII was Anakin getting resurrected and living with Luke in a castle where they occasionally fight off stormtroopers, so you’re not the only one with awful ideas, lol.
Granted, both of these probably still would have been better than Rise of Skywalker.
If you had some more characters and a compelling boss for the stormtroopers this could be really good.
I hate Messianic prophecies in general, or the very idea of a Messiah, because it encourages the idea that all hope for the future is dependent on one dude, instead of like, the group effort that is required in real life.
Granted, Star Wars doesn’t incorporate a true Messiah into the mythology. Vader is more like a very round-about Messiah who only saves the Universe after he fucks over the entire Universe. So it’s at least a twist on the idea of a Messiah, kind of like Dune. But I still don’t like it, because it shrinks the Universe by elevating one guy to cosmic significance. At one point, Luke was just a random farmboy and Vader was just a cyborg SS officer carrying out the will of his government. There was a backstory intertwining the two of them, but it was personal, not a matter of cosmic importance.
Nothing is really a “true Messiah” because the Messiah is from Judaism, and (except for Messianic Jews) believe that the Messiah hasn’t come yet. The actual Messiah according to Christianity was of course Jesus Christ, who was a perfect being and the only possible person who could save humanity from sin and death. Jesus specifically rejected the people who wanted him to be like the conquering hero Messiah we have in fiction. He repeatedly told everyone to repent and get their own lives in order, and didn’t fulfill their fantasies of overthrowing the Romans or making himself king in a mortal sense.
There aren’t any messiahs, chosen ones, etc. in fiction who are anything close to that. It’s just a phrase people throw around like destiny or prophecy. The concept has a very specific real world context that often gets tossed out the window.
Yeah, I see that too, I just think it’s symptomatic of an unwieldy/messy script more than it is intentional malice or whatever for the series. That’s ridiculous to me, it’s at worst a guy who has different ideas [than you or someone else] about how this all works and who these characters are.
The most charitable interpretation I can come up with is Rian Johnson was going for something along the lines of a “Wizard of Oz” type message, where it turns out the Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion had all the brains or courage they needed all along, and just needed to believe in themselves to access it. Something like that. That is sort of compatible with what happens with Rey’s journey of self-discovery, where she sort of self-learns the Force. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a message like that, but it’s not a fit for Star Wars and what was established before, where the Force requires a mentor to learn and is already part of a pre-packaged, venerated mythology.
As for “intentional malice” - I’m not really sure what that would even mean in this case. I don’t believe that like, Rian Johnson sat down one day and started angrily writing the script, saying things like “I’ll show those stupid Star Wars fans… they want to see Luke do they? Oh I’ll give them Luke… I’ll give them Luke all right!!! Bwahaahaahaaa!!!1!!! *starts choking on iced latte*”
I think Rian Johnson just wanted to take Star Wars in a new direction he thought would be interesting, while avoiding accusations of just retreading Empire Strikes Back and working within the story parameters that carried over from Force Awakens, and he ended up writing a very misguided script. At the very least, I found it heartbreaking watching the Mark Hamill interviews about this.
I would compare it to the attitude from this iconic interaction between Blizzard and WoW fans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wrw3c2NjeE
“You think that having a cool Jedi with a lightsaber in your movie would be good, but it wouldn’t. You think that’s what you want, but it isn’t.” That’s basically what Luke tells Rey at the beginning and it sets the tone for the whole thing. Every part of it is like that, even down to a visual gag where you think you’re looking at a cool space ship and it’s really a clothes iron or something. The “subverting expectations” meme. It even starts subverting itself within individual scenes, to the point where it kills off original ideas, like what if Rey actually joined Kylo.
Oh, you think you know what a good movie is? I’ll show you what a good movie is. You like this character? Well, maybe I’ll show you what the “realistic” version of that character is. It’s more like that attitude.
In my research efforts to reconstruct a history behind the writing of The Last Jedi, I’ve found that Rian Johnson’s portrayal of Luke was a direct result of Rian’s attempt to work within the story parameters he inherited from The Force Awakens. We know that J.J. Abrams wanted Luke to be hiding on some island, mostly because the writers initially didn’t want Luke to steal the stoplight from the new characters. So J.J. Abrams decided Luke would be hiding on some island, but Abrams never really worked out much of the backstory details beyond that, except for the broad idea that Luke was on some pilgrimage to find an ancient Jedi Temple. Presumably, Luke was seeking answers after the disaster that befell his Jedi school, but the whole thing is very half-baked. (J.J. Abrams loves half-baked mystery plots that take place on a remote island.)
When writing TLJ, Rian Johnson tried to make sense of Abrams’ half-baked plot point of Luke hiding on the island. Rian apparently decided that the best way to explain Luke on the island was that Luke didn’t want to be found, and purposely cut himself off from the Force. This idea was pure Rian, as Abrams initially had Luke using the Force at the end of Force Awakens, levitating some boulders while meditating. Rian Johnson asked Abrams to remove that scene so TFA would fall in line with TLJ. Everything else follows from there.
Now, Rian’s idea for Luke sucks. But it’s not like Rian was working off a blank slate. Rian inherited this stupid scenario from J.J. Abrams, with Luke hiding on an island for under-explained reasons. In my opinion, Rian’s idea only makes it worse and isn’t even compatible with Force Awakens, because (A) it doesn’t explain why Luke would have left a map and (B) it doesn’t explain why Luke went to an island with an ancient Jedi Temple if he wanted to be cut off from the Force and die. It’s also hilarious how Luke is wearing these pristine white robes like a venerated Jedi Master in J.J. Abrams’ version, but in TLJ, Luke immediately changes into his less dignified bum clothes after Rey arrives. Luke’s change of wardrobe signals that a new director has arrived on the island.
But whatever, the point is, we can retrace the historical steps that led to The Last Jedi turning out the way it did, and it clearly has little to do with some malicious plan to damage Star Wars, and more to do with horrible story-telling decisions that probably seemed like good ideas to the people involved at the time. That said, Rian Johnson at the very least must have been aware that what he was writing would be very controversial. He probably thought it would be worth the gamble and trusted his instincts, not wanting to repeat the same old Jedi training scenes from the Original Trilogy, and believing his script would be vindicated and praised as bold, innovative and original, and most importantly, unpredictable, with many “twists” that defy pre-conceived audience expectations about a Star Wars sequel, much like Empire Strikes Back.
TLDR: J.J. Abrams vomited out a typical low-effort mystery box script that exiled Luke to a remote island for half-baked, under-explained, out-of-Universe reasons, and Rian Johnson just ran with it and added his own personal angle as an auteur, thus turning Luke into the depressed asshole we know and love. It’s not what I would have done if I inherited J.J.'s mess of a story, but then, Disney doesn’t care what I think.
Here’s the thing. There are many creative things you could do with that setup. Like you said, you could say Luke is trying to figure out why his academy got destroyed and how he could change things for the better. Hence why he would go to the first Jedi temple, to learn about something the original Jedi knew that was lost over time. Maybe he was researching a way to beat Snoke and he didn’t want anyone else getting in danger while he was working, but it didn’t pan out. The idea I came up with when I first saw TFA was that Luke was afraid of his own level of power - he was at the point where he had so much mastery over the Force that he was tempted to use it in ways that would lead him to the dark side. (A sliver of this idea sort of gets used where he’s afraid of Rey’s power and he was afraid of the power he gave Kylo Ren, but it’s immediately dropped.)
What Rian CHOSE to do with that setup reveals a lot about his own opinions and worldview, especially given, like you said, it doesn’t make any logical sense either.
The message of Luke appearing in projection form isn’t that “the Jedi are good, actually,” it’s that image is everything. The real Luke doesn’t matter, because the specter of younger, popular Luke is what people like. It’s all about deception and propaganda. The actual Jedi and the actual Luke sucked but they’re a noble lie.
I mean, that’s going a bit too far I think. The movie clearly at least tries to end on a positive note, emphasizing that Luke’s heroic actions on Crate (Krait?) served as inspiration for a potential new generation of Jedi, beginning with ordinary people all over the Galaxy, like the famous “Broom Boy”. Clearly, the ending was supposed to be uplifting and positive, promising that the Jedi would rise again - in some form or another.
I think this ending is stupid. It pretty much killed my interest in the Sequel Trilogy. The whole movie is mostly stupid. But I can at least discern that the director at least wanted the ending to be perceived as hopeful and positive, but also bittersweet, like the ending to Empire Strikes Back.
I guess I’ll amend what I said. It isn’t necessarily consciously trying to be dour and cynical or make the audience feel bad at the end, but it’s clear that that is the worldview that it’s coming from. It’s saying that the Jedi returning is ultimately a good thing, but for symbolic reasons, not because they are competent or that they were actually good in the past. Like I said, nothing Luke said was refuted in any way, and it was confirmed by Yoda. The legacy of the Jedi was failure. And not just prequel-era failure, failure dating back to the original Jedi temple that should be burned down. Yoda implies that Luke screwed up in some nebulous way because he didn’t “pass on what he learned” to his students, which was failure.
The uplifting, positive part is that Rey could start over because she was taught… something… and that the common ordinary people in the rebellion can use the Jedi as a rallying force, like you said. But if you critically examine that at all, it’s deeply cynical about what heroism is, and about the value of tradition or culture. Again, the Jedi and Luke are a noble lie. That’s not necessarily consciously what the intention was, and maybe that’s a mean way to put it for some people here, but that’s the literal text we have to work with, and the writer chose to write it that way.
The “broom boy” is only “famous” on this website of 15-30 people.
Yeah, I see that too, I just think it’s symptomatic of an unwieldy/messy script more than it is intentional malice or whatever for the series. That’s ridiculous to me, it’s at worst a guy who has different ideas [than you or someone else] about how this all works and who these characters are.
I agree. TLJ may be very flawed and misguided in a lot of ways, but it’s not malicious or nihilistic or anti-Star Wars. At most, you could call it existentialist, since the movie has the heroes question the basic aspects of Star Wars, only to choose to embrace them in the end, anyway.
My problem is mainly that I think the sequel trilogy era is too shallow and flimsy to stand up to that level of scrutiny or questioning, so I ended up disengaging, and felt no investment in what was going on.
Anyway, we were talking about dialogue.
By the director’s own words, he wanted to create a movie where half of the people who watch it hate it, and he succeeded. There is a clear dislike of Luke Skywalker and the Jedi. There is no refutation of any of the nihilistic stuff he says throughout the movie at all. In fact, Yoda confirms that everything they did was a failure, their sacred traditions are boring, and commences book burning (he let Rey take the books so she could get the tips and tricks and do it herself because she’s better than Luke, but he was deceiving Luke and wanted him to think he was burning the books. The audience is also supposed to think this is a good idea because Yoda is doing it, before the fakeout.)
Saying that if the Jedi die the light dies is vanity, the Jedi at the height of their power got wiped out by Darth Sidious like they deserved it, etc. None of this stuff is questioned. It also canonizes the misguided fan concept that the light and dark sides are yin and yang and will always equalize (“powerful light, powerful darkness” “darkness rises and light to meet it”) which inherently makes the whole setting pointless and hollow.
The message of Luke appearing in projection form isn’t that “the Jedi are good, actually,” it’s that image is everything. The real Luke doesn’t matter, because the specter of younger, popular Luke is what people like. It’s all about deception and propaganda. The actual Jedi and the actual Luke sucked but they’re a noble lie.
It’s about how the past has everything to teach us. Specifically, failure. It’s not about discarding the past, Yoda talks about growing “beyond” [it]. That’s the quote. Rey is going to make different choices than Luke, and Luke is not going to let those past choices define his identity. Rey is not going to define herself by her past as an unwanted nobody.
Eh… people always say this, and I think “oh yeah… I guess that makes sense.”
Then later I actually rewatch the movie.
And I see Yoda burn down an ancient library probably filled with priceless artifacts and ancient wisdom while giggling (Yoda isn’t supposed to giggle when not in incognito-mode but whatever). And I see that Rey learns almost nothing from Luke, except maybe one thing in a deleted scene and a basic explanation of what the Force is. Rey swings around a lightsaber by herself because Luke can’t be bothered to teach her some moves. When Rey looks in a mirror she sees nothing but an infinitely recursive reflection of herself. Then Rey leaves, having learned almost nothing, but Yoda assures us she has all she needs.
The overall message conveyed is that the past is almost exclusively something we must move beyond from - not learn from, except, I will grant, inasmuch as the past teaches us what not to do (learning from failures). At the end of the movie, Rey triumphantly lifts some boulders using the Force, calling back to an earlier meta-joke about “lifting rocks”. But where did Rey even learn to do this? She didn’t learn this from absorbing any wisdom of the past. Nobody taught her. Presumably, she looked inward and taught herself, I guess. Even in terms of learning strictly from past failures, there is little Rey absorbs from the past failures of the Jedi or Luke that plays out meaningfully plot-wise.
Exactly
You make it sound so good!
Yes, I suspect you were squarely in the target audience
I don’t literally mean that he’s a criminal smuggler and he flies a freighter and not an X Wing, I mean that of the three leads he is the most similar in personality. TLJ deliberately places him in the same cocky “never tell me the odds” scenario, with Leia still being the character pushing back against him. Except this time the situation is reversed because it was written that way as a deliberate insult to the kind of people who like Han Solo. (Also this time physically hitting him, shooting him, and having her subordinate humiliate him, then gaslighting him about it.)
Finn has nothing to do at all and is presented as a bumbling buffoon, which is a separate issue.
The entire Holdo subplot was truly bizarre. Almost every aspect of it is difficult to make any sense of. Holdo withholds information mysteriously, and dialogue and directorial cues suggest to the audience that Holdo is hiding something, or that she might be a spy or perhaps be suspicious of a spy onboard. But then it turns out she was just hiding information for no reason. My take on this weirdness is that Rian Johnson thought this would be another “surprise reveal” or something, playing with audience expectations by subverting conventional story-telling tropes. But it just doesn’t land. It comes off less as some interesting reveal and more like an incoherent script. Nobody really knows what Holdo was thinking or why she decided to withhold information from Poe.
Unfortunately, since this whole issue is also wrapped in typical culture war nonsense, it’s often difficult to discuss online without emotions flaring up. I’ve seen some people argue that Holdo’s actions make sense, because she didn’t know if Poe could be trusted. Except Poe just destroyed Starkiller Base yesterday, so he’s probably the LEAST likely person onboard to be a spy. This fact gets lost on the audience, because The Last Jedi doesn’t really feel like it takes place one day after The Force Awakens. We go from triumphantly celebrating the destruction of Starkiller Base at the end of TFA, and presumably a devastating blow to the First Order in general, to suddenly being thrown into a situation at the beginning of TLJ where the First Order is rapidly conquering the entire Galaxy somehow and the Resistance is on the run.
TFA (along with out-of-Universe promotional material) suggested that the First Order was sort of analogous to “Nazis who had escaped to Argentina and started a little movement”. Thus, our impression is that they are nowhere near the same scale as the Galactic Empire, and they were relying entirely on Starkiller Base to gain any military advantage over the Republic. But then in TLJ, it seems the First Order actually is a much larger organization with military resources at least comparable to the Galactic Empire, and that destroying Starkiller Base was only a minor setback for them. TLJ also seems to confirm that the entire Republic was destroyed in that one attack from Starkiller Base in TFA. But none of this is explained to the audience, so TLJ just comes off as weird and disorienting, making it feel as if a lot of time has elapsed between movies.
I suspect that Rian Johnson just assumed the First Order was supposed to be dominant in TLJ, brushing off the destruction of Starkiller Base like it was nothing, because that’s what happened with the Galactic Empire in Empire Strikes Back, despite the destruction of the Death Star in A New Hope. Except, A New Hope established the Galactic Empire was already the dominant government controlling the Galaxy, whereas The Force Awakens at least suggests (although doesn’t really confirm explicitly) that the First Order is more like some rogue state that doesn’t have anywhere near the manpower of the Galactic Empire.
Yes, the intention is subversion. Everything in the movie is trying to be subversive and question the premise of Star Wars. So the Jedi aren’t good or necessary, Luke hates the Jedi and wants them to end, the good guys are morally questionable because they buy weapons to fight the bad guys (lol), the traitor Lando equivalent doesn’t redeem himself in the end, Finn’s sacrifice attempt is stopped, Rey’s parents are nobodies, etc.
Poe’s entire character is a rebuttal of Han Solo. He’s a masculine, cocky expert pilot who likes to buck the system and do things his own way. The Very Special Lesson he learns is that sometimes you need to listen to authority figures and follow orders and trust the system. You can’t always do things your own way even if it would be cool. In-universe this could have some logic to it because the rebellion is supposed to be a military organization with a chain of command, and in the original trilogy, it was. Hypothetically it would look a lot like the episodes of Star Trek TNG with Admiral Jellico, a by-the-book rules stickler coming into contact with our heroes who tend to play everything fast and loose, and after some conflict they both come away with more respect for each other.
In TLJ it’s an absolute failure because Holdo doesn’t dress, talk, or behave at all like a competent, professional military officer. She’s conniving, snippy, and annoying for no reason, but the script rewards her for it. She’s Leia’s secret best friend, she gets the cool anime fleet destruction scene, and all her actions were vindicated by the plot warping around the stupid casino sidequest. There is no pushback or “yeah maybe she could have been more transparent,” Leia extols what she did as a selfless avoidance of glory-seeking.
Culture war gets brought into it because it’s directly relevant to that decision.
I know some find it cheesy, but I love the idea that Anakin/Vader is “Space Jesus”. Mostly because it’s more of a subversion of the trope.
Star Wars is a modern myth, and I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s just “Jesus” in particular. Demigods are a common staple of mythology, from Mesopotamian to Greek to Hebrew. Especially since The Force isn’t strictly a metaphor for the Christian God, but more a concept that symbolizes Gods across cultures, imagines God as more of this energy field rather then an entity.
It elevates Darth Vader, especially in Canon, where he never lost any of his potential, into a greater cosmic/religious horror idea.
What if the Messiah sold his soul to the Devil (Palpatine) and became his Dragon, this Angel of Death who collects souls to bring them to the underworld? He uses his demigod like powers to commit atrocities, sets out to kill all of the other Angels/Priests (however one wishes to equate the Jedi symbolically), bring the galaxy under the Devil’s heel. What if Hercules became Hades’ servant and did the same thing?
Vader becomes this Grim Reaper, enforcer of Death, in trying to cheat death.Because the Force conceived of Anakin, but Palpatine was this abusive father figure to him, he’s both the Son of God and Satan. He’s simultaneously Christ and the Antichrist, because Vader is the pure manifestation of Anakin’s dark side.
Luke Skywalker (and Leia) thereby also becomes a demigod, and as such, emphasizes his importance to Obi-Wan and Yoda and the galaxy. You need a demigod to fight a demigod.
Luke has equal potential to his father, and as such, not only is Vader made a greater force through this idea, but Luke. He’s the hero, the one person who can defeat the Devil’s Dragon.
Only Vader’s blood could face him, not only because they’re both demigods, but because of what Luke represents. His son isn’t just his blood, it’s Padme’s. The only one who can shake his soul’s faith in the dark side.Anakin doesn’t return and fulfill his destiny until his son Luke is able to, through his compassion, compel him to redeem himself. Sons of Gods and Demigods battling and having complicated familial relationships is also a common motif in mythology. How interesting is it, too, that Jesus doesn’t sacrifice himself until he’s spent decades entrenched in sin? And really only sacrificed himself for his son?
It’s fascinating for me. For the record, I’m an atheist who finds mythology interesting.
It isn’t Jesus in particular because it isn’t Jesus at all, other than the very surface level detail of the virgin birth. If you want to get into theology, Jesus couldn’t sacrifice himself if he ever sinned at all. Anakin being redeemed and sacrificing himself is Christian imagery, but it isn’t Christ imagery, if that makes sense.
It’s understandable that people think angels and demons and stuff are cool concepts to play around with, like in Supernatural or Diablo or something. But it’s not a “subversion of the trope” unless you mean the trope that people made up about religion/mythology after the fact, not the real thing itself.
I have the Dorling-Kindersley Star Wars Visual Guide of the OT, which came out in 1997, and there it says the Emperor looked the way he did due to his lifelong immersion in the Dark Side.
After watching TPM I expected there to be a progression of his Dark Side corruption becoming more evident with each passing entry, and I was sorely disappointed when ROTS establishes that actually it was due to Mace Windu deflecting Force Lightning back at him. So stupid.
I recall the official SW website came up with some bullshit explanation that actually Palpatine was using the Force to project a non-corrupted looking version of himself. Yeah right.
I think it was a mistake bringing McDiarmid back for the prequels. No shade against his acting ability, but Palpatine really needed to have been played by a much younger actor to drive home the severity of his dark side corruption. James Marsters I feel would’ve been the perfect choice.
This could not be more wrong. He’s easily the best part of the prequels.
For what it’s worth, Lucas did try the gradual degradation thing. In Attack of the Clones he looks noticeably more pale and withered. It’s very noticeable in the “I love democracy” scene. For some reason in Revenge of the Sith this was dropped.
I kind of like the mocking tone of Luke talking about laser swords, and it’s time for the Jedi to end.
The only real dumb line to me is kill the past. But Kylo is Sith wannabe, so it does make sense.
As for Rose line about winning through love and not hate, it comes from an idealist. A woman who lost her sister. A woman who lost her family fighting the first order. I don’t hate it as much as people reacted to it.
Luke’s whole character and attitude including the laser swords line is just directly insulting the audience. Same with tossing the lightsaber. “Oh, you thought you were going to get something cool? Screw you. You’re stupid and immature for wanting that.” I know what someone is going to say. Luke realized he was wrong and so he did go against the First Order with a laser sword in the end. That doesn’t change anything and it’s still deeply unsatisfying. He didn’t help, he faked helping so hard that he died.
For two whole movies, the Resistance wasted countless lives and resources trying to look for this guy, which is why they’re in that situation in the first place. Yes, I know what the message is. Something like “the image of a hero is more important than the hero themselves because they can inspire change.” Who is left to inspire? The people in the Resistance that are still alive can comfortably fit on the Millennium Falcon. It’s so beyond lame. How about the image of a hero is REAL because they’re actually heroic and not pretending, and people are inspired by their real actions?
The Rose line is really dumb especially in context. Finn just tried to heroically sacrifice himself to save everyone (you know, like we just watched Holdo do.) He was trying to save the people he loved. It wasn’t about hatred. She stopped him for selfish reasons and as a result, Luke had to do his own fake sacrifice routine so that a handful of them could barely survive. Luke, Holdo, and Rose together are directly responsible for the Resistance dying and losing.
I would in all honestly prefer a reboot of the EU from Vision of the Future onward. The only thing I would keep is Luke and Mara being married and having a kid or more than one kid.
Anakin Solo would not die, Jacen wouldn’t go all Hayden Skywalker. Jaina wouldn’t become a force god or whatever the hell she was, Mara wouldn’t die.
This would be great.
"Many are unhappy with the quality of new canon films and novels, and have begged for their favourite old novels and characters - Shadows of the Empire, Thrawn, Mara Jade and so on - to be re-introduced into the official timeline. "
This would be very foolish and I think the ignorance of those people only becomes more and more evident with time. It’s better to leave those things alone and not do a much worse version of them. Like we’ve said in other threads I think the ideal, more realistic solution would be to let authors work within the Legends continuity if they want.
I agree except for the part about Greedo, that was completely justified self defense and not really sleazy.
I don’t think this show saved Anakin, yet alone the prequels. This show is too silly. I find it ironically amusing when people say this show saved the prequels, when it has the exact same issues. Awful droid humor, jar jar episodes, Anakin is still excessively obsessive and weird with Padme (think about that one episode where he gives Padme his lightsaber in the office and his demanding and immature attitude), the tone is all over the place, Anakin is easily duped to evil ( think about Mortis trilogy, he becomes evil because the evil son showed him in the future that he will be evil and thinks being evil in the present will stop him from being evil in the future, RIDICULOUS). And even the parts of the show that are good like Maul, are ridiculous when you think about it… Maul literally parades around with no genitalia. It’s absolutely absurd and I wish this wasn’t considered “canon.” Even though I only really count the OT as canon since SW has been retconned into oblivion.
Nothing can save the prequels. They are done. They exist. If you don’t like them then try to focus on the original prequel ideas that exist in the ROTJ novel and Thrawn trilogy, as rare as the details are.
That being said if Ihad to revisit Lucas’ prequels I read Darth Plagueis and ROTS NOVEL…
Yeah it’s overrated even by itself. The animation style has this weird floaty, weightless quality that keeps any of the action from having impact.
When you watch the show people have these charts where they tell you what episodes to skip and which arcs are good because they’re so hit or miss. It seems like a lot of the popularity comes from memes about “heh wow this is so dark for a kids show, they’re doing war crimes right now.” Okay, it’s dark for a kid’s show. You showed very light, bloodless versions of people getting tortured and soldiers dying in combat. And? Does that make it good?
Not to mention nothing matters. The show was created after everyone had already seen Revenge of the Sith. There is no tension at all because we know how everything ends already and we know exactly who lives and who dies, even down to the minor background characters and almost every villain. Oh no, our heroes are captured for the 30th time, just like every other episode! Will they make it to the movies to do all the stuff we already saw them do?
The closest it goes to patching the prequels somewhat is adding a little bit of information about Sifo Dyas that goes nowhere, and adding the brain chips to the clones to further explain Order 66. But the chips are only patching a problem that the show itself introduced, making the clones all sympathetic characters that wouldn’t betray the Jedi on their own.
I don’t know about you but for me, if I have to skip episodes in order to enjoy a show, that means it’s not a very good show. No one says to skip Breaking Bad episodes, Sopranos episodes, Game of Thrones episodes, Avatar Last Airbender episodes, etc. etc.
If you were to tell someone to watch this show starting from Season 1 I’ll wager more than half would quit just based off the first episode with Yoda and the clones and that insufferable droid humor.
To be fair there are a lot of hit or miss shows that are still really good, especially when they have full TV seasons of 20 or so episodes. There are watch orders for Star Trek TNG or Deep Space Nine for example, and TNG season 1 is considered really rough. There are episodes of Avatar that people hate that they probably skip on rewatches. Game of Thrones famously ended poorly in its later seasons.
However I think with The Clone Wars it’s just worse overall. The story is all divided up into arcs and it’s a sort of anthology show that jumps around in the timeline and doesn’t focus on any particular narrative thread. If you have a bad arc then it’s a string of 3-4 episodes that all go down. If you have a good arc it can get ruined by a boring episode in the middle. You don’t just skip episodes, you skip whole characters like Jar Jar and Padme. There are a bunch of episodes that focus on side characters who aren’t particularly interesting, and you’re just waiting for Obi Wan and Anakin to come back.
They just need to pick the ideas and elements that worked before and expand them. For example the best episode of the Mandalorian was the Wages of Fear/Sorcerer fuel transport depot story. A tight action set piece followed by a decent character moment. Instead of muddying the waters with yet more Jedi nonsense and failed attempts to add nuance or new dimensions to the Force, just start with classic movie homage. They did the Dam Busters, so they can do Battle of Britain. Or Cross of Iron. Or Kelly’s Heroes. Or anything. Star Wars itself was always a ‘steal from the best’ situation after all.
lol every time they do this they remake Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven again or they claim they’re doing “Rashomon.” Even in Star Wars Visions, one of the episodes was remaking The Hidden Fortress even though that’s already the original movie.
Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith blow out the Obi Wan show, easily. Attack of the Clones ties with it. Counted together the prequels win. They have the much bigger budget and setpieces, better sets, costumes, extras, effects, music, and action, and have Ewan McGregor AND Ian McDiarmid consistently instead of just one. Jar Jar is less irritating than Reva.
I don’t think this show saved Anakin, yet alone the prequels. This show is too silly. I find it ironically amusing when people say this show saved the prequels, when it has the exact same issues. Awful droid humor, jar jar episodes, Anakin is still excessively obsessive and weird with Padme (think about that one episode where he gives Padme his lightsaber in the office and his demanding and immature attitude), the tone is all over the place, Anakin is easily duped to evil ( think about Mortis trilogy, he becomes evil because the evil son showed him in the future that he will be evil and thinks being evil in the present will stop him from being evil in the future, RIDICULOUS). And even the parts of the show that are good like Maul, are ridiculous when you think about it… Maul literally parades around with no genitalia. It’s absolutely absurd and I wish this wasn’t considered “canon.” Even though I only really count the OT as canon since SW has been retconned into oblivion.
Nothing can save the prequels. They are done. They exist. If you don’t like them then try to focus on the original prequel ideas that exist in the ROTJ novel and Thrawn trilogy, as rare as the details are.
That being said if Ihad to revisit Lucas’ prequels I read Darth Plagueis and ROTS NOVEL…
Yeah it’s overrated even by itself. The animation style has this weird floaty, weightless quality that keeps any of the action from having impact.
When you watch the show people have these charts where they tell you what episodes to skip and which arcs are good because they’re so hit or miss. It seems like a lot of the popularity comes from memes about “heh wow this is so dark for a kids show, they’re doing war crimes right now.” Okay, it’s dark for a kid’s show. You showed very light, bloodless versions of people getting tortured and soldiers dying in combat. And? Does that make it good?
Not to mention nothing matters. The show was created after everyone had already seen Revenge of the Sith. There is no tension at all because we know how everything ends already and we know exactly who lives and who dies, even down to the minor background characters and almost every villain. Oh no, our heroes are captured for the 30th time, just like every other episode! Will they make it to the movies to do all the stuff we already saw them do?
The closest it goes to patching the prequels somewhat is adding a little bit of information about Sifo Dyas that goes nowhere, and adding the brain chips to the clones to further explain Order 66. But the chips are only patching a problem that the show itself introduced, making the clones all sympathetic characters that wouldn’t betray the Jedi on their own.
I’ve only watched the part of the video linked to in the opening post, and this is an interesting subject to me in that it also highlights what George failed to do or show onscreen in the Prequel films. And the continuing attempts since to fix, repair, or explain the shortcomings or problems with the Prequels in the ancillary series and material since. Whether that is 2003 Clone Wars (to an extent), the 2008 film, The Clone Wars series, Rebels, or Tales Of The Jedi and so on. Or official articles and interviews, and the slew of fan-made “George is a secret genius” or “Prequel deeper meaning” material such as Ring Theory or visual symmetry, or overlong and videos pieces on fans simply “failing to understand the Prequel films”. None of which changes anything onscreen in the Prequels themselves.
For example, I really enjoyed the Dooku segments of 2022’s Tales Of The Jedi. But I could not help but question just why we were not shown such material in the Prequels themselves, which would have made his character and story arc far more compelling. 20 years on from AOTC and we finally got some enticing onscreen content about Dooku and his motivations, instead of what we saw in AOTC & ROTS; a 2D disappointing mustache twirling throwaway villain.
We really could do with a Special Edition of the Prequels, such a thing would be fascinating to see, along with the reactions and thoughts of many Prequel fans.
Though I still don’t understand why Obi-Wan and Anakin’s friendship, them becoming a team, and then closer like “brothers”, wasn’t shown in the Prequel films themselves; that it needed “a footnote” such as TCW to explain or show this.
According to George, the Anakin character was “very one-sided” in ROTS, perhaps this was why George felt the need to show that more charming heroic side of Anakin, “his settling down and maturing a little bit which is what happens when you become a parent or teacher”. But this takes place shortly before his fall to the dark side, betraying the Jedi, killing the children again (and the men and the women too!), choking his pregnant wife, and fighting Obi-Wan. Then finding out it was all for nothing, that he was lied to and misled by Palpatine, but still continuing on to become Space Hitler. To me it is all quite uneven, and jarring.
If George Lucas worked on and had significant input on TCW along with Dave Filoni, then George should likely deserve more credit for “saving Anakin Skywalker”, with any others who worked on that side of creativity for the film or series. Is the video posted by SWOTFAN25 about 2008’s The Clone Wars film, or the series? But anyway, we should also remember and acknowledge why Anakin needed “saving” in the first place, going on what was shown or portrayed in the Prequels. Or not shown, in this case.
100%
I think Star Wars needs to take a break. A very long break. I don’t think the universe needs to get bigger but smaller. For me, less is more when it comes to Star Wars. For me, Star Wars was at its best in the pre-prequel era because projects were coming out minimally, and when they did, it was special. I feel like there was a more quality over quantity approach. We need to get back to that. Rather than having 10 shows running at the same time, I would rather have one show with all those resources put into it. That would be an Emmy award-winning masterpiece like breaking bad, or the Sopranos or Game of Thrones. Instead of releasing 100 books a year release three, but make the contents, super impactful to the universe and significant.
I agree with everything you said here.
I think the old Tales of the Jedi comics did the thing we’re talking about. It felt like older tech and clothing…a.more interesting visual style than Jedi robes and Tie Fighter looking ships from the KOTOR style era.
Indeed. It’s like creators post-1998 got together and said “We don’t have to be creative anymore; we got the prequels now.” SW has been a coprophagic ouroboros ever since.
You know, I think that even if the prequelization of the Jedi and Sith orders was introduced in-universe only after the Battle of Russan, you would still say that the EU authors were not creative enough. Why? Because the vast majority of the stories within the EU take place between 1,000 BBY and 4 ABY, so you would still have the majority of EU stories portraying the Sith and the Jedi in a prequelized way.
I would say a massive amount of the EU stories are set after Return of the Jedi, just in terms of sheer text. A good chunk of other EU stories are 4000 BBY and were changed to be more movie-like with the release of KOTOR. KOTOR is great though, and I think part of it was just how difficult it would be to translate all the lavish comic book artwork into a 2003 video game. So I don’t blame them visually, at least.
The “dark side” as a blatantly degradative drug is just kind of a boring read IMO. If The Force is supposed to be “everything” then the nuances of the human experience should be given room to work inside the framework. Agency and choice is a far more compelling engine to drive a story than mythological convention. It’s part of what makes ROTJ work for me; it wasn’t “too late.” It denies this idea weight.
Whether or not it accidentally stumbles into it, the prequels do enough to portray that rigid understanding of the Force as flawed pedagogy too - more than truth about nature. For all the convoluted vagueness about the galactic polity and what it’s meant to analogize, the denial of anything innocuous possibly leading to “the dark” (for a child) works too well in a decade not far removed from satanic panic and at the height of Catholic church scandal. I know not everyone agrees, but I do think that stuff is interesting. The Wire is a good show, and better than Lord of the Rings.
The prequels get so close to finding a good synthesis, but ultimately fail by retreating into Anakin’s wacky yellow-eyes corruption in ROTS’ third act. It just doesn’t leave much genuine room for feelings of remorse or guilt in The Force, and make Anakin/Vader feel less real.
The nuances of the human experience do work inside the framework. That’s the point. The agency and choice is the mythological convention. We always have a choice. We should choose good over evil. Moreover, like I just said, the dark side is not normal emotions at normal levels. Han Solo (or Andor or whoever) gets frightened, angry, jealous, greedy, etc. quite a lot, but he is not tapping into the black magic of pure hatred. He doesn’t have the position of power necessary to make that a possibility - people with the Force do. You can compare it to the Ring or “with great power comes great responsibility” or the atomic bomb in Oppenheimer, or whatever suits your fancy.
Here we go with the anti-Christian stuff again. Here is the issue with that - it’s Faust. It’s inherently a story about a guy selling his soul to the literal devil, which you can then use to symbolize non-religious things if you want. But that is the story. The Jedi’s interpretation of how it works in the prequels is correct. Their portrayal contradicts the message because it was done incompetently.
The Wire is not better than Lord of the Rings. That’s the ultimate apples to oranges comparison.
Duel of the Fates is really good. The music and the acrobatic performances play into the (intentional) feeling that this is something ritualistic and ancient. The gigantic plasma pillars could be toned down a lot but the huge cavernous space suggests a kind of temple. Here we’re meeting our enemy from a thousand years ago and we’re all bringing those many years of tradition with us.
The duels in Attack of the Clones are awful. Most of the Palpatine and Yoda duel, and parts of the Anakin and Obi Wan duel, are pointlessly flashy and don’t contribute to the epic feeling in the same way the Darth Maul fight does, but the Anakin and Obi Wan duel is pretty good otherwise.
As for Obi Wan vs Vader in the original movie, it is a bit slow due to the limitations of the props, but it’s still good. This guy just sped it up a little and it works very well. Much more classy than SC38 or the Obi Wan show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVqg7sTcra0